Of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (8 page)

She gave Jericho a big toothy grin from where she stood over a skillet. Jericho smiled back uncertainly, not sure why she was being nice to him when he was here to take Dahlia away.

“
¿Quieres huevos rancheros?
” she asked.

Jericho felt his smile fall away. He shook his head once. “I’m sorry … I don’t — ” He shrugged.

“She’s asking if you want eggs,” Gabriel said from the table.

Jericho turned his attention to the small boy.

“And, by the way, you do. Grandma’s
huevos rancheros
are awesome.”

Jericho nodded at the woman. “Uh,
sí … por favor
.”

Her smile widened at his poor attempt at Spanish, and she gestured for him to sit at the table. Jericho shuffled over and took the seat farthest from the child. He studiously avoided eye contact, even though he could feel Gabriel’s eyes boring into him with unspoken questions.

Gabriel’s grandmother sat a steaming plate in front of him. His mouth watered at the sight of tortillas piled with fried eggs and warm salsa. “Thank you. I mean
gracias
,” he said.

She nodded again, and patted his hand with her own. The Knowledge immediately responded with a warm
good
, and Jericho smiled genuinely at her.

He ate in strained silence until he could ignore Gabriel’s eyes no longer. He braced himself and met the young boy’s stare.

It was all the kid had been waiting for. “Are you my mommy’s boyfriend?”

Jericho choked on his eggs. After grabbing a glass of water and clearing his throat, he discovered that both Gabriel and his grandmother were looking at him expectantly, an indication that the woman understood at least a little English.

“Uhh — ” Jericho began.

“What do you know about boyfriends and girlfriends?” Dahlia asked from the doorway.

All three of their heads swiveled around to look at her. Jericho’s breath abandoned him again as he laid his eyes on her. She was smiling at Gabriel in a way that betrayed she was head-over-heels in love with the boy. It made her stunningly beautiful. The Impulse shivered through him again, and he rubbed the palms that itched to touch her against his thighs.

Gabriel blushed and quickly said, “Nothin’.”

“Um-hmm, that’s what I thought.” She winked conspiratorially at the other woman, and then motioned Gabriel to herself. “Come here,
mijo
. Give me
un beso
. It’s time for school.”

“
Ay, mamá
, you just got back!” Gabriel protested while clutching the sides of his chair as though one of the adults in the room were going to pry him from his seat.

Dahlia shushed him quietly and motioned one more time for her son to come to her. Gabriel pouted, but left his seat and dragged his feet over to his mother where he obediently gave her a peck on her cheek.

“I’ll be here when you get back, baby,” she said softly while pinning Jericho with a glare above Gabriel’s head. He fought the urge to squirm.

Gabriel left the kitchen with a hanging head, and Jericho’s heart panged as he watched Dahlia come into the room and take a seat across from him at the table. Gabriel’s grandmother sat a plate in front of her, and she turned grateful eyes toward the older woman. “
Gracias
, Esperanza.”

Esperanza
. Jericho filed the woman’s name away while simultaneously pondering why Dahlia would call her mother by her first name. Unless …

He looked at the women closely. No family resemblance. He frowned.

Esperanza kissed the top of Dahlia’s head and then left the room. Jericho became instantly and acutely aware that he was alone with his Impulse mate again. Unbidden, his mind wandered down the hall and to the pallet he’d made in the floor of the empty room. Plenty of room to roll around …

Jericho straightened in his seat and shifted uncomfortably to lessen the pressure behind his fly.

Dahlia was eating quickly and neatly, and she was blatantly ignoring him.

It gave Jericho a chance to study her without interruption. What
was
he going to do with her? The obvious answer was take her back to the compound. That was his job. Those were his orders. But he couldn’t risk the valuable information she promised. That is, if she wasn’t lying through her teeth.

This would be so much easier if he just knew for sure she was evil.
Why
did last night have to happen? He cleared his throat. “So … ” Dahlia didn’t break stride in her eating. He tried again. “Last night, when I … touched you — ”

Dahlia’s head snapped up.

“By accident,” Jericho clarified in a rush. He couldn’t prevent a wince at her smirk. “Anyway, when my fingers touched your hand,” he shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance, “the Knowledge told me you were …
good
.”

Dahlia stopped chewing. Her brows crashed down over her incredible eyes, and she tilted her head.

Jericho waited several seconds, hoping for … God, he didn’t know whether he wanted her to confirm that she was evil or just the opposite. His brain was so muddled from her presence in the room.

When she just continued to stare at him, Jericho grew frustrated. “Well, which are you, Dahlia,” he snapped. “Good or evil? The fruit’s told me both, and it’s confusing the hell out of me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sorry to be such an inconvenience.” She went back to her breakfast.

Jericho made a noise of distress once he figured out she wasn’t going to answer his question.

She sighed. “It’s my opinion that evil is what you do, not who you are,” she said slowly, as though talking to an idiot.

Jericho frowned. That made … sense. Testing on the fruit so far was inconclusive. They knew that each time a test subject had skin contact with someone, something whispered
good
or
evil
. But they hadn’t run enough tests to know if the Knowledge was telling them if the
person
was good or evil or their intentions. Dahlia’s hypothesis fit the findings.

He felt like growling. Why the hell did he have to make this discovery outside of a lab and in a pressing situation? If he didn’t know if she was good or evil, how did he know he was doing the right thing by taking her back? He didn’t know enough of her history to know if she was really a murderer or not.

Her jaw had started moving again as she continued to chew her food, and before he knew it, his eyes were riveted to her moist lips. Her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip, and then she lifted another fork full of food to her mouth. Her eyes closed in bliss as she slid the fork between her lips.

Jericho bit back a groan at the same time he came up with a brilliant idea. He could touch her again. He could touch her thousands of times. And then he could average the
good
and
evil
reads until he had an idea of where she stood. His palms were sliding across the table to her side before he realized he was a freaking idiot.

“I have to take you back,” he blurted. The sensual haze clouding his mind evaporated instantly.

Dahlia didn’t argue. She just got a look of steel in her eyes. “That wasn’t the deal. I won’t leave him without a fight.”

Jericho floundered. Something inside of him refused to drag this woman away from her child. What made it worse was Jericho desperately wanted to be in her situation: with a living son to fight for.

He straightened as he remembered her earliest attempt to persuade him against his mission. “Is
he
your life-or-death situation?” Maybe she hadn’t been shoveling him a steaming pile of bull in that train closet.

Dahlia averted her eyes and shifted in her seat, but she didn’t answer him. Which, in a way, was its own answer. An answer that might change things.

Help her
, the Voice whispered to him.

Jericho did his best not to react, but the unexpected intercession of the Voice jolted him. The Voice had never led him wrong before, not for over eight years. He looked at Dahlia again. She hadn’t moved in her silent challenge of him, and he had to admire her for it. She just sat there resolute. He wouldn’t move her without hurting her, and even the passing thought of putting his hands on her in violence made him sick.

But in the end, he couldn’t forget his orders. His job. And her nature. He was sliding down a slippery slope with this woman.

He shook his head at her. Fine. He would find out this other information, and then he would be taking her back immediately, promise or not — it was the only decision he could make and still know who he was. He watched as her eyes got even more flinty. Jericho swallowed past the sick feeling in his throat. Why didn’t he feel like he was making the right decision?

Dahlia nodded at him once and then got up from the table to take her empty breakfast plate to the sink. Jericho stared at his own empty plate for a second before picking it up and following her lead.

He wasn’t watching where he was going, but he heard when she stumbled and his head shot up just in time to watch her take a catching step forward while stifling a moan. Immediately, he knew it was the Impulse. They’d ignored it for as long as it would allow, and now it was demanding attention.

The plate she was carrying clattered to the floor, and, working purely off instinct, Jericho tossed his to the counter just in time to catch her by the elbow as her knees failed her. Thought fled. His fingers dug into her soft skin as the overwhelming Knowledge that she was
good
rolled through him. And then the tingles, the uncomfortable aches he’d experienced since waking this morning, receded. It felt so good to touch her that he moved around to her front and gripped her other elbow. Her scent wafted up, and he felt himself sway toward her.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice he barely recognized.

“No,” she moaned, raising her eyes to meet his with an accusatory stare. “You touched me! Damn it, why did you have to touch me, you gigantic idiot?”

They’d just argued over what Dahlia probably defined as a deal-breaker, and yet Jericho could
feel
the connection between them growing stronger with every second his hands were on her flesh. He couldn’t pull away from her if his life depended on it.

Though her eyes still accused him, she was apparently feeling the same, because she leaned forward, the tips of her breasts brushing against his torso and then coming into full contact as she stepped into his body, fusing them from knee to where her head rested against his broad chest. A sigh left her body on a shudder and her arms came around him, her hands pressed splayed into his back.

“I don’t want this,” she mumbled into the cotton of his t-shirt. “I despise you. You’re going to take me away from my son.”

He could only make a sound of assent in the back of his throat as his arms came around her body of their own volition. He couldn’t deny what she was saying.

“So, stop this,” she pleaded. Her arms tightened around him contrarily. “Step away from me and don’t ever touch me again.”

He tried. Or, God help him, he at least thought about trying. His body wouldn’t obey. “I can’t,” he breathed. His breath ruffled her hair, and she raised her head to look at him, locking eyes with him and dooming them both.

“Then kiss me,” she whispered.

He was moving to obey in the next breath. Her eyes slid closed the closer his lips got to hers. When he brushed his mouth across hers, her lips parted and she sighed into his mouth. His arms cinched tighter, molding her body to his. He felt her hardened nipples through the thin cloth of her shirt. Felt them push into his ribs even farther as she moved her arms, winding them around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss.

This time, when their lips met, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and bit down on it. Hard.

He knew she meant to punish him for the threat he was to her happiness, but it unleashed something in him he couldn’t control. An inhuman noise ripped from Jericho’s gut, and his hands descended on her ass, grabbing roughly and hauling her up. He forced her legs to wrap around his waist as he charged forward. His knees met the cabinets with a crash and his knuckles scraped across the corner of the countertop as Dalia’s ass landed on the pock-marked Formica.

The pain shooting up and down his shins brought him back to reality. He wrenched his hands from underneath Dahlia and jerked back. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. Dear God, he’d been really rough. He could have hurt her. His stomach dropped. Maybe he
had
hurt her.

Before he could step completely from the warm shelter of her thighs, Dahlia grabbed his shirt and hauled him back in with surprising strength. “Don’t you dare stop,” she growled at him.

He frowned, his lust-fogged mind not understanding her request. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt you,” he said, grasping her head with both hands, his fingers tunneling through her hair, feeling for a bump in case he’d hit her head against the cabinet doors behind her.

Her head lolled back with his touch, and she moaned.

Jericho’s fingers stilled, and her eyes opened to meet his. Her pupils were completely dilated. Her brows drew together as she gazed at him, and she licked her bottom lip, leaving it glossy. “If you don’t kiss me again,” she said, “
I’m
going to hurt
you
.”

Jericho drew back, sure he’d misunderstood. But after a couple of seconds of staring at her mouth, he didn’t care if he’d misunderstood or not. He moved in to close the distance between them again, and she met him more than halfway.

He tried to be gentle this time, he really did, but as soon as their lips touched, he lost himself again, seeming to snap. Their teeth clashed together, and he crowded into her further.

She was all frenzied movement in his arms, and he had a hard time keeping hold of her. Her hands roved from his back to his neck and into his hair until finally trailing down his back and clutching his ass.

His body jerked at the contact, and she used the movement to pull him closer to her, placing his erection directly in the cleft of her thighs. They both broke the kiss to suck in a startled breath.